With my first character I am playing a thief archer, focusing on skills like archery, lock picking, speech, pickpocket along with light armor and one handed. This character has very much peeked at level 50 and so I am considering making a new character who would be a Vampire Mage. I am looking for any suggestions/tips from more experienced players.

Here is a rough outline of what I have in mind:

- Female Nord. Will contract the vampire disease as early as possible in the game (I heard that heading straight to Vampire Fang Cave after going out of Helgen is the fastest way).
- Will get the Necromage perk as I heard it essential for vampire characters.
- She will be the Arch-Mage of the Collage of Winterhold and the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood.
- She won't marry or have a house in any hold but lives in the Arch-Mage quarters or the Dawnstar Sanctuary.
- She is an alchemist, who makes special potions to either sell or to use on herself to boost stats.
- She doesn't uses armor other than mage robes. Nor weapons like swords/bows or shields but only staffs. Her magic is essentially her offense and defense.
- Besides her horse Shadowmere, she is accompanied by her bodyguard (any suggestions on a good follower for this character?).

Aside from this I think I should build up on sneaking skills to lower the odds of being caught while feeding on a sleeping person. I am also planning to ally with the Stormcloaks this time around.

So based on this outline, can anybody please make some suggestions or share a few tips on how better play a vampire character? Think I should invest in some particular skill, get some specific perk, etc?

Thanks.

From an RP perspective, I don't think a Vampire Assassin would be the Arch Mage of the College on Winterhold.

If you focus on only wearing robes and get your enchanting up high so that you can put powerful Fortify Magicka enchantments on them.

Also, heavily invest in Destuction, as when I played a mage, this is obviously a skill that I relied most upon. Also, invest a LOT in Conjuration, as I feel a Vampire would summon the undead to fight for them!

I can see you point, and I think I can agree with that. Maybe I'll just stick to her being an Arch Mage as I don't want to join the Thief Guild and I am sort of planning for her to see the Companion "werewolves" as an enemy/threat, so won't join that guild either.


Ah, yes i forgot about Conjuration, perhaps it is better if I forget the idea of having a bodyguard (followers not being too great to begin with) and make her more of a necromancer who can raise corpses to do her bidding.

Thank for the tips!

If you are going to forget about followers and use conjuration, I know when you get it up to 100, you can conjure dead thralls who'll stay with you until they die!

Apparently they're a little bugged, but it could be a good idea.

Illusion is your friend, as a vampire you get a boost to all illusion spells. Should invest heavily in this school along with alteration as your necromage perk shall boost Mage armour by 25%.

Personally I'd give alchemy a miss and opt for conjugation instead, but if your using it as part of your RP then just go ahead.

Oh and enjoy it's very tough at the start buy you'll be a monster by mid game due tonyour illusion abilities.

My vampire illusionist assassin is a beast with Illusion, you are unstoppable with illusion. So I would go with illusion for one of your schools, and try to get Necromage as fast as possible.

Destruction, Illusion, Conjuration

Raise the dead
Set your enemies on fire or freeze them, shock them, do whatever you like
Charm your enemies, make them run in fear

All of these things are good for a Vampire.

I would drop Alteration, Restoration.

So what do you think about that?

Restoration would be needed for Necromage

This is my favorite character to play. I like to play at stage 4 the entire game. Get to the cave from Helgen and wait a week. THEN head into Riverwood or where ever.

The Nord race is the last one I would choose for a Vamp. They are already 50% res to frost. The Kaj are next to last as they already have Night Eye. I think the best race is an Imperial. They have The Voice of the Emp power. That is extreemly handy in early to mid game. Especially if you are playing S4 24/7.

Once you do a quest for someone they are no longer hostile towards you. Getting there is the tricky part. You will be forced to use all of your Illusion abilities to start quests and trade goods with merchants. But if you ever feed and then reach S4 again you will loose the friendship you have built with the merchant or guild.

Getting a certain Daedric artifact,, will allow you to feed and actually get stronger from it. Plus you will still remain at Stage 4. Great Vamp fun indeed.

EDIT : Conjuration is an absolute must IMO. That Dead Thrall spell is arguably one of, if not the single most powerful spell in the game. You can upgrade their armor and give them ANY weapon to use. They will swap out according to the distance from the enemy. I think they have a better combat AI than the followers. If they die, just bring them back. Plus they can carry an unlimited amount of loot.

I went pure illusion magic with mine. It is a little tough until you get the perk allowing your illusions to work on undead, but after that its a very powerful build

Destruction, Illusion and Conjuration do indeed seem like the best skills to focus on. But as far as Restoration goes, as was said it is necessary for Necromage and wouldn't it be helpful to have the healing spell too?

I'll look a bit into the different races to see if I choose something other than Nord, tho look wise I find the Nord to better fit the image I have in my mind of the character.

I am not sure if I'll allow the character to reach S4 given that everyone turns hostile towards you at that stage and she being the Arch Mage of the Collage can't be in a state that prevents her from properly interacting with people. Perhaps S3 will be the ideal spot (is it easy to tell what level you are in and keep the character at a certain level?).

As far as other things go, she will have Molag Bal as her patron (he being the "father" of vampires) and will own the "House of Horrors" in Markarth and sleep there every now and then.

Lots of helpful tips so far, thanks for the input!

After 5 Vamps, I have yet to go the Restoration route. Although, traditionally lorewise, it seems fitting for a Vampire to possess uncanny healing abilities. That Necro Perk is a nice boost to the Vamp, for sure.

EDIT : another note on the Nord race. Due to a bug, they turn dark when becoming a Vamp.

Necromage perk from Conjuration? What does it have to do with Vamps?

Restoration is the only way to sparkle, duh.

Ugh, is this bug on PS3 too? How dark does ti turns? I would like the character to have white/pale skin.

What? The Necromage Perk is Reatoration. It affects all "Undead" in the game. When your character becomes a Vamp, they are tagged as "Undeed" therefore they too are affected by that perk.

And what the Hell is sparkle?

EDIt :

@ VB : I'm not sure about the actual tone, or if it is on the PS3 either. I am running off of reports. I know it is on the PC. Sorry...

You seem to have everything sorted out. The only valuble information I can offer is that if you must have a companion use Jzargo from the college. I find its just easier to use conjuration as a vampire along with some illusion.

I'll have to try and see what happens, from quick searches I found that it is likely related to setting the skin tone to the absolute minimum in the character creation screen. Maybe not doing so will avoid. Another page says it has to do with the eyeliner color and that you should use none. Ugh, I'll have to try and see what happens.

Any one who has made a vampire can confirm the "burnt" face issue?

Thanks for the advice by the way, Immolator001.

A side question: doesn't the need to feed become a shore when playing as a vampire? How often would I need to do it? Will I need to feed every time I fast travel?

The bug is like that for Imperials, Bretons, and Nords and as far as I know it only does that bug if you pick the palest and the next choice on the slider for your skin tone.

And if I can suggest a race I would recommend Bretons, since they have the ability that lets them resist magic for 60 seconds once a day.

I see, so the character becomes pale after turning into a vampire if I don't go with the palest choice? Or does it remains with the same tone i originally picked?

I am making a similar character, a wood elf conjuration vampire so I can have a follower+dog+2 conjurations+tamed animal(a horse too lol) should be sweet. I'm also looking forward to messing with illusion because I've rarely touched it with my other characters.

But I didn't post just to let everyone know that, I'm interested in tips on the fastest/best way to learn magic as an almost pure mage especially since I'm going to be a public enemy as soon as I hit stage 4. Dont get me wrong my main/1st character is a jack of all trades and archmage so I know how to get magic in the long run. But I'm wondering how a strict mage goes about learning spells at a good pace, because as it stands I want to be a conjuration mage yet I have no conjuration magic lol.

Conjuration is my favorite of all the skills. Especially Dead Thrall. It goes very well with a Vampire. And it complements Illusion very well. A fast way to get your Conjuration up is to get the Bound Sword Spell, find an enemy ( like a wolf or even the stupid fish) jump on a rock at dual cast Bound Swords.

@VB : I hope your character works out. I am glad to hear of this work around. Let us know how it works out for you.

I tried a Breton and put the skin value on the third option after the first two pale ones. It didn't work for me, the character's skin got darker when turned into a vampire and her face looked like if someone had beat her up. Progressing through the different stages made it a bit worse. The Breton is also way too short/tiny for the character I want to make. Looks like a mouse next to Lydia and the face complexion of that race didn't convince me no matter how much I tweaked it.

I started over as a Nord and got the look I wanted for the character down. But after playing a bit with the Breton as a vampire, adding to the fact that it ruins the character skin/looks, I am not so sure now that I'll enjoy playing a vampire as much as I first believed, as it is very much guaranteed to become a chore for me to be constantly managing the feeding times and vampire stages, as I wouldn't want to be on S4. Specially as I can only feed on a person who is sleeping. I think it will take away from the enjoyment of the game. The fact that the character gets weaker during the day even if I am deep in a cave without being hit by sunlight was a turn off too. The commitment and work demanded to play as a vampire seem to outweigh the benefits.

I have not turned the Nord into a vampire yet and have not decided but I am considering just going the necromancer route, doing the character exactly as I outlined above but without the vampire aspect.